Mighty, Mighty Matadors

Estacado High School, Integration, and a Championship Season

Al Pickett

Strongly inviting comparisons with the movie Remember the Titans, this book by veteran sports journalist and author Al Pickett is an inspiring, insider account of the Lubbock Estacado Matadors, who came together for love of a sport to become Texas State AAA High School football champions in their first year of eligibility.

In the late 1960s, the Lubbock Independent School District was pressured by the courts to address its still-segregated system, and its response was the new, integrated Estacado High School. Estacado’s first head football coach, Jimmie Keeling, formed and fielded a team of young men who had never played together before and who came from widely differing parts of the social spectrum. Remarkably, he forged a unit that was not only cohesive but highly competitive, rolling undefeated toward a historic championship finish.

Mighty, Mighty Matadors features action-packed accounts of Estacado’s championship season, but even more, it offers heartwarming glimpses of the lifelong friendships formed by players who joined hands across racial and social divides to accomplish a goal. In the process, they helped bring pride and unity to their hometown.

AL PICKETT is a print and broadcast journalist who has covered sports in central West Texas for more than thirty years. A founder and recent inductee of the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame, he is also the author of several other books, including Team of the Century: The Greatest High School Football Team in Texas and The Greatest Texas Sports Stories You’ve Never Heard.

What Readers Are Saying:

“Al Pickett has done a masterful job of recounting and bringing alive those great years at Lubbock Estacado High School in the late 60s. It was my pleasure to be the head football coach at Estacado at this time. A fine group of young men came together at this interesting time in history to become a great team. All of our coaches were a perfect fit for this time and place. Thank you Al for making this all come alive again! A fun read for anyone and especially anyone interested in sports and high school football.” – Jimmie Keeling, retired after 35 years of coaching high school football, and 21 years as head football coach at Hardin-Simmons University

“I highly recommend The Mighty, Mighty Matadors. Al Pickett has written a masterful account of one of the finest teams in Texas high school football history. The story of Coach Keeling and how he guided his team through obstacles on and off the field is inspiring.”—Jay Black, Vice President Operations, Texas Sports Hall of Fame